Mushroom cultivation on beds
A good and easy way of growing mushrooms, is on a bed of wood chips.
The advantage of cultivation on wood chips, is a relatively fast result; you harvest within a few months already.
It also gives a good yield, and with some maintenance, you can harvest every year again.
To avoid attracting vermin, we don't use rye for grafting, but wood flour brood.
The best time to make a bed, is in the early spring, after the last frost.
Species that are suitable for growing on beds, are:
- King Stropharia (fresh ships) (go HERE for cultivation instructions)
- Nameko (wood ships beech or fresh wood ships).
Supplies needed to make a bed of 150 x 50 cm (15cm deep):
- fresh wood chips or bag of beech ships (beech ships15 kilo (50 liter) - is sold in pet shop or garden center as beech chips, always take the coarser option
- Sawdust spawn 3 liter
- spade
- cardboard
- watering can
Dig away some earth in a shadow rich place, about 15 cm deep, and put cardboard on the bottom.
Add a layer of about 7cm of wood chips, and moisturise it with the watering can.
On top of this we add the spawn. Crumb the spawn while it's still in the bag, and then spread it over the bed evenly.
As you can see, I'm using a piece of sawdust spawn of 2,5 liter on which Nameko is already growing. This too is still very well usable to inoculate a bed.
Then add the rest of the wood chips on top, and moisturize well with the water can (or garden hose) with sprinkler.
To be sure of the correct humidity of the bed, you can also soak the wood chips in water for a night, and make the bed the next day.
In places where the ground gets too humid in the wet season, you can elevate the bed a little, while in dry places you can put it a little deeper.
Maintenance of the bed:
The bed doesn't need much maintenance, let nature do the rest of the work. During warm summer weeks, it is advisable to sprinkle water every now and then, after which you might cover it with plastic or burlap.
With plastic there is less evaporation, but do add sufficient air holes.
To check the humidity of the bed, feel the top layer with your hand. If more than 4cm is feeling dry, you can add water, but make sure not to give too much.
